LEARNING STRATEGIES: THE SCIENCE OF STUDYING EFFECTIVELY
In 2013, Dunlosky et al. published the most comprehensive review of student learning strategies ever conducted. They rated 10 popular techniques from high to low utility. The results are not what most students expect.
ShiftGlitch Learning Science · Updated April 2026 · 6 min read
2
High-utility techniques
Out of 10 popular learning strategies reviewed, only 2 received a high utility rating: distributed practice (spaced repetition) and practice testing (active recall).
50%
Better outcomes from practice testing
Students who used practice testing instead of rereading consistently showed 50% or more improvement in recall one week later — across subjects, age groups, and material types.
80%
Students use low-utility methods
Despite the evidence, 80% of students in surveys report rereading as their primary study strategy — one rated low utility in the Dunlosky review.
EVIDENCE-RANKED LEARNING STRATEGIES
The Dunlosky et al. review rated each strategy based on breadth of evidence, generalisability across subjects and student types, and effect size. Here's how 8 major strategies stack up:
HIGH
Distributed Practice (Spaced Repetition)
Spreading study sessions over time dramatically outperforms massed practice. Consistent across all age groups, subjects, and retention intervals.
HIGH
Practice Testing (Active Recall)
Self-testing through flashcards, past papers, or blurting produces significantly better retention than any form of restudying. The testing effect is one of the most replicated findings in cognitive psychology.
MEDIUM
Elaborative Interrogation
Asking "why is this true?" for each fact you learn forces you to connect new information to existing knowledge. Effective but requires strong prior knowledge to work well.
MEDIUM
Self-Explanation
Explaining the steps in a worked example or the reasoning behind a concept improves learning — similar in mechanism to the Feynman Technique. More effective with guidance.
MEDIUM
Interleaved Practice
Mixing different problem types within a study session (instead of blocking all examples of one type together) improves discrimination and transfer. Feels harder — and works better.
LOW
Rereading
The most popular study strategy among students. Rated low utility: produces fluency with words but not genuine retention. The familiarity of rereading is mistaken for learning.
LOW
Highlighting and Underlining
Marking text is passive — it requires no retrieval, no processing, no connection-making. Students who highlight heavily often recall no more than students who read without marking.
LOW
Summarising
Summarising in your own words has some value for comprehension but limited benefit for long-term retention. Requires training to do well, and is outperformed by practice testing with far less effort.
> The key finding
The two strategies students use least — spaced practice and practice testing — are the two strategies with the strongest evidence base. The two strategies students use most — rereading and highlighting — show consistently weak effects. This is the core problem the science of learning has been trying to communicate for decades.
ShiftGlitch is built on the two high-utility strategies: spaced repetition via the Leitner system, and active recall via the Braindump Protocol. Both are available free, without limits.
// Frequently Asked Questions
What are the most effective learning strategies according to research?
According to the landmark Dunlosky et al. (2013) review of 10 popular study techniques, only two received a high utility rating: distributed practice (spaced repetition) and practice testing (active recall). Every other strategy reviewed — including rereading, highlighting, summarising, and keyword mnemonics — received medium or low utility ratings. The gap between the top two and the rest is substantial and consistent across ages, subjects, and retention intervals.
Why is rereading considered a low-utility learning strategy?
Rereading produces fluency with words — the text feels familiar, and that familiarity is easily mistaken for understanding and memory. But familiarity is not the same as recall. When students try to retrieve information from memory without the text in front of them, the rereading advantage disappears almost entirely. Practice testing shows you where your knowledge actually ends; rereading hides those gaps behind a false sense of competence.
What did the Dunlosky study find about highlighting and underlining?
Dunlosky et al. rated highlighting and underlining as low utility. The core problem is that marking text is a passive activity — it requires no retrieval, no processing, and no connection-making. Students who highlight heavily consistently recall no more than students who simply read the text without marking. Highlighting also creates the illusion that the marked content has been processed, when it has only been noticed.
How should I combine spaced repetition and active recall in a study session?
The two strategies work best together. During an initial study session, read the material once to build a rough understanding. Then close your notes and use active recall — write down everything you remember (the blurting method). Check your notes to identify gaps. Then schedule your next review at an increasing interval: the following day, then three days later, then a week. On each return visit, attempt retrieval first before consulting your notes. This is the full retrieval-plus-spacing loop that produces durable long-term memory.
Can interleaving practice really improve learning even though it feels harder?
Yes — the feeling that interleaving is harder is part of why it works. When you block practice (one topic at a time), each problem is predictable; your brain recognises the problem type and applies the same solution automatically. Interleaving forces your brain to identify which strategy is needed for each problem before applying it — this extra step is cognitively demanding but dramatically improves the ability to apply knowledge in new contexts. The short-term difficulty produces long-term gains.